Lonely is the Knight
by acogna
Summary: DCEU based, post-Justice League. When a certain cat burglar returns to Gotham after ten years of absence, it doesn't go unnoticed. And while a certain masked vigilante billionaire would rather much deny the effect she has on him, there are hidden enemies in the shadows that will jump at the chance to use her against him, and expose the human side of an otherwise inhuman being.
1. All Paid Jobs Degrade the Mind

**Just know that this ship now owns my ass. This is my first segue into DC and its fandom, so feedback, both good and bad, is heavily appreciated.**

 **This fic is DCEU based, meaning that I'm writing this viewing Ben Affleck as Batman, with my image for Selina being actress Morena Baccarin. Like I said before, the story also starts at approximately a couple of months after the events of _Justice League._ I wouldn't consider this my take on the upcoming Batman movie (to be directed by Matt Reeves), but consider it a hypothetical sequel to that hypothetical movie. I also wouldn't consider this fic much of a love story, even though love is the central theme; more like an action-adventure that just happens to put romance at the very center of attention.**

 **In totality, the plot takes a lot of inspiration from some comics like _Hush_ and largely on _Heart of Hush._ Some story elements from Telltale's _The Wolf Among Us_ and their take on Batman are also included. As you read, there will be some parts that are rather familiar to you if you've ever been exposed to the titles I just mentioned.**

 **To get the noir feeling that I wanted for the story, I watched _a crapton_ of noir films, Henry Boggart, and Alfred Hitchcock, and I'm trying out a new writing style, since this is the first time I've ever written an entire fic in the present tense. It's also has a significantly shorter word count than most of my stories, for the noir feel I'm going for.**

 **But what** _ **are**_ **the essentials of film noir? Three things: the hard-boiled world-weary detective who takes no shit, the gruesome and mysterious murder that sets the plot rolling, and the illusive and enchanting** _ **femme fatale**_ **who may be our tragic hero's demise.**

 **And that's how we'll open.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own** _ **Batman;**_ **that pleasure belongs to DC and their affiliates. I didn't create** _ **Batman**_ **either; that pleasure belongs to Bob Kane and Bill Finger.**

* * *

The airport isn't a kind place to strangers. Bustling and pushy crowds, all from different sides of the world, speaking in strange accents and noticeable in even stranger mannerisms. Flowing with the crowd should be easy when everyone's a new brand of diverse, but she's the opposite case. Even as she descends from her plane to the cacophonic mess of Archie Goodwin International Airport, the black of her outfit and clicks of her heels calls heads to turn to her, try as she might to blend in.

She's a sight for passers-by to hook onto as she waits in front of the luggage conveyer belt, her watchful eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, a lithe body shape concealed in the most fashionable of dim coats, her wide-brimmed hat hiding in shadow what many would consider a pretty face. And since it's human nature to be attracted to something you don't fully understand, people can't help but be fascinated by the mystery that surrounds her. With her black leather purse slung around her arm, she waits between the other passengers around the conveyer belt, spewing out boxes and luggage bags from her ten-hour flight.

She doesn't know how long she'd been standing there until she spots her black luggage back emerge from the conveyer. But before even before she takes five steps in its direction, a man swoops in and takes it by the handle, placing it down on the floor in front of her. To get a better look at the stranger's face, she pushes her sunglasses lower along the bridge of her nose, a sly smile on her blood red lips.

"My, my," she drawls, "and here I thought chivalry was dead."

"It isn't while women like you exist," the man returns, with a voice that probably makes him look more suave than he usually is.

He strikes quite the figure, she can admit: tussled hair, tamed beard, crisp jawline, and striking eyes. Handsome at a glance, even more charming the more time spent around him. He holds out a well-sculpted hand, she takes it with her own gloved fingers.

"Doctor Loris Tate," he introduces himself, and the widening of her eyes doesn't shock him.

"Did I hear that right?" she asks, her head tilting and curiosity heightening. "You've just made yourself much more interesting, Doctor Tate. Catherina Dolores; a true pleasure."

"So," he begins, looking behind at a bright sign with her flight number and from where it came: Florence, Italy. "You Italian?"

 _"Conosco la lingua,"_ she says, her tongue accustomed to the long consonants and singing vowels. "I've only stayed a few months for a change in scenery. Girls like me love to be adventurous."

"I can tell," he smirks, scanning her from head to foot as they begin to walk to the arrivals dock, with him carrying her baggage in one hand and his own small travel backpack in the other. "And the new change in scenery you had in mind was Gotham City?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

He shrugs, suddenly aware of the direction the conversation is tipping towards: not in his favour. "It's not, but this city doesn't have the most spotless reputation. This your first time visiting?"

She shakes her head. "Actually, quite the opposite. Gotham born and raised."

"Isn't that something?" his smile grows. "Lived your whole life here too? You just keep finding Gothamites on every country in the world now."

She turns her head to see from where his flight came from, and she spots the conveyer on the far left. "You've come quite a distance too."

He gives off a playful scoff. "Chicago isn't as far as Florence."

"Just means that Gotham has a charm that keeps people coming back, doesn't it?"

"That or the people in it."

There's a ghost of a smile on her face, as if she was reminiscing something. "I can agree with you there."

He notices the sentimentality in her voice and clears his throat. "So, why'd you come back?"

She seems to hesitate, but her composure is quicker than his tongue. "I have some unfinished business here." Her sly smile grows. "Does a certain handsome doctor have unfinished business here too?"

His cheeks grow red, but he tries his best to remain unfazed. "You could say that. I'm here to see if my family's doing well."

"Must be quite the family, raising a charming little boy like you."

His face completely flushes. "You flatter me too much, Catherina."

Just as he says that, they exit the arrival hall and are greeted by the warmth of the dusty and strong-scented air, taken aback by cabs and private vehicles along the road come to pick passengers up. The sun above them shines mercilessly on the large and tattered expanse of towers and shanties in the distance, floating along the waters of the harbour: Gotham City.

"Well, we best be going," she says, taking the suitcase from him. "It's been fun, but we're both here to do our unfinished businesses. It would be a sin to keep you from that."

He looks sheepish, kind of adorable. "But can't I get your number, at least? Quite a pity the conversation has to end this early, when it was just getting good."

"Oh, don't you worry," she begins sauntering away, her hips swaying as she removes her shades to reveal emerald green eyes shining beneath the shadows of her hat. "You'll find my number in the pocket where you keep your wallet. _Arrivederci, Dottore!"_

He doesn't want to question how she knows where his wallet is being kept; despite that, he reaches into his jacket pocket, then the shock overtakes him once he realizes the bulge of his money is missing. He digs further into it, his dread increasing as he learns there's nothing, save for a small note in a scratchy handwriting akin to a cat's claw marks:

'My number's 9, it's how many lives I have!'

A pickpocket.

When his panic settles in and rage replaces it, he looks around to confront the culprit, but Catherina Dolores had already disappeared from the airport crowd. When he asks around if any of the people ever saw a woman in black matching her description, they would deny ever even noticing such an elusive creature. It's as if she had never existed.

* * *

The night wind whips around the cold wet streets of the East End, making Commissioner Gordon's trench coat billow around him like a cape. But instead of standing mysteriously on a cornice of a tall distant building overlooking the cityscape (like a certain man he knows), he's standing in the middle of police sirens, distressed officers, nosy news reporters, and police tape.

It's less cinematic than he thinks it to be.

Chief O'Hara comes walking towards him as he smothers another cigarette on the asphalt. She's come from the crime scene, he can see it in her face; he'd only seen it once and didn't need to see it again. The apartment where the poor girl was murdered had the walls splattered with bits of her blood, her own body lying in a pool of broken bones and torn flesh in the middle of the living room, where the neighbors found her. They were supposed to report sound complaints to the GCPD; little did they know that those sounds were the screams of a dying citizen.

"We've identified the girl," Chief O'Hara says matter-of-factly, as she should when discussing crime details.

"That took a while," Gordon comments as he takes the folder O'Hara hands to him.

"Hard to do it with her face bashed in and her fingerprints nearly sanded off," O'Hara replies, and Gordon can hear her try to supress a shiver.

As he opens the folder, he's met with the dossier of another young Gothamite lost to the never-ending war on crime. Her picture looks at him blankly, her eyes still full of many years she should have used living. Gordon can only sigh in exhaustion as O'Hara continues.

"Clarissa Walker, age twenty-three," O'Hara seems resigned now, even as she doesn't mention how these murder victims keep getting younger and younger. "Cause of death could be anywhere between fractured skull or stab wounds in the torso."

Gordon closes her dossier and hands it back to O'Hara; he can't look at another victim's face anymore. "Get her body to the morgue for someone to claim. And update her record as deceased."

"Got it, Sir."

"Any updates on the husband?"

O'Hara nods. "He claims to be the one who murdered her. Might be circumstantial, but the blood splatters on his clothes do match everything else in the crime scene. He's handcuffed, waiting in one of the cars."

Gordon pulls out another cigarette and puts it between his lips, clicking his lighter and spewing out a first exhale of smoke. "He got a name?"

"Matthew Walker, age forty from what database analysis managed to share with me."

Gordon nearly chokes on his smoke at the mention of his age. "Forty?"

O'Hara gives a wry grin. "That's all they've told me, Sir."

He takes a drag on the cigarette. "Well, damn. What a helluva night this turned out to be."

O'Hara shifts uneasy, putting her hands on hips as she stares at the apartment building now sealed off by GCPD, and the few amounts of reporters trying to get their exclusive from witnesses shooed away from their good-night's rest. The police tape encasing them doesn't even seem real anymore.

"You think we should call him on the case, Sir?" O'Hara suddenly asks.

The one syllable escapes the Commissioner with some smoke. "Who?"

She looks at him expectantly, as if he's supposed to know what she's insinuating. Soon he gets the idea, and gives a shrug.

"PD doesn't answer to him, I hope you know that," Gordon clarifies. "He isn't some superior we just give information to all willy-nilly."

"And yet you trust him."

Gordon shoots her a tired look, the kind you give to a snarky daughter. "The man has a fucking car that goes at two hundred miles an hour and can beat Falcone's entire warehouse gang in hand-to-hand if he's having a good day. If he's willing to help us, I'm not backing down on that chance."

"So you hesitate to call him now because?"

"He works on the huge cases: drug cartels, mob wars, the Joker. This is just some domestic killing that we can solve in days."

O'Hara crosses her arms. "And you're still gonna try."

Gordon accepts his defeat with a sigh. "Yeah, I'm still gonna try."

"Tonight?"

"No, tonight's too soon. He'll be expecting some information on our part, and we don't have much of that right now." He looks up into the night sky. "Besides, I think he's busy."

* * *

Bryant Industries HQ is a marvel of a skyscraper, rivalling the brilliant architecture and imposing air of Wayne Tower itself. Against the night sky, its lights seem to look like stars. But as it's located in Gotham City, it's bound to be the victim of some sort of crime at one point in time.

And tonight is that particular one point in time.

An exact number of half a dozen armed and masked goons manage to get past the initial security by beating them unconscious, and destroy all CCTV cameras going up to the CEO's office on the 72nd floor. It's all amateur tactics, even to the supermarket plastic masks used to conceal their faces and machine guns from Falcone; obviously they're inexperienced, and it's commendable that they went for a huge corporation on their first hit like Bryant Industries instead of some small bank along the street. Brave in a way, but still stupid for attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Finally, they reach the CEO's office, hidden behind a safe code. The hacker of the six of them proceeds to try and break the system without the security alarms blaring. While one stands guard of him, the other four go out to scope the floor for any security cameras to take out or any potential threats to remove.

And that's when they begin to disappear.

The first one walks into a conference room and destroys the CCTV, closing the blinds of the windows from the night lights of Gotham. That's when a figure from the shadows lunges toward him, and his radio signal goes dead.

The second one walks into the secretary's cubicle, searching for any valuables the assistant could have left behind to claim for his own on the table tops and in the drawers. But a looming dread is felt behind him, and his radio signal goes dead.

The third and fourth enter the extensive pantry, opening the cabinets to try and find anything other than instant noodles and pastries. The third notices a blinking red light landing in the middle of the room, and before he could even take a step closer to investigate it, the room erupts in smoke. In an instant too fast for them to even comprehend, the darkness seems to expand, and both their radio signals go dead.

The fifth, guarding the hacker in the middle of the CEO's lobby, hears the radios of his comrades flat-lining from his own device as he tries to switch to them. "They're gone."

The hacker doesn't turn to him. "What?"

"The others," the fifth clarifies, facing him. "Their comms are dead."

"Well, go check it out then," the hacker retorts as he opens the panel of the keypad, already annoyed.

The fifth is apprehensive. "Yeah, but—"

"C'mon, man, don't be such a baby. I need to focus."

The fifth goes out into the darkness, the flashlight attached to his AK-47 quivering in fear. And just as quickly and swiftly, a specter from above descends upon him, and a sickening thud of a skull hitting the concrete echoes through the whole floor. The light disappears.

The hacker stops what he's doing and looks up from the opened keypad. The building is deadly quiet, with no noise except that of his own ragged breathing. But the uneasy tranquillity is interrupted suddenly by a strike on the CEO's door. Despite all intuition in him telling him not to investigate, he gets up anyway and walks slowly towards the sound. And to his shock and dread, he finds wedged right in the middle of the wooden door a metal projectile shaped like a bat.

The hacker turns around to get the hell out while he can. "Oh, sh—"

But he can't move before he gets a huge kick to the face, slamming his head into the doors and breaking it wide open, rendering the security system useless. Before he could even get up, the darkness grabs his shirt collar and lifts him from the floor, making his eyes lock with that of the gloom.

He's face-to-face with the Dark Knight.

Without a second to breathe, the hacker is thrown at the CEO's table, his back coming into direct contact to the edge of the desk and sending pain straight up his neck and back. Because of the ache coursing through his body and the fear that shakes his psyche, he doesn't get up; but despite himself, he still thinks he has a chance and tries to reach for his gun. But the shadow kicks it away and grinds its heel on his hand, hard, making him yell and writhe in agony as his wrist is broken into little pieces.

"Too ambitious," the metallic synthetic voice growls, and the hacker winces, now useless.

After handcuffing the hacker to the desk, the wraith scans his surroundings, not a pin out of place. Walking along the room, he notices the CEO's desk in too pristine a condition. Going through the drawers proves nothing either, but as he notices the sudden draft upon standing directly under it, his head shoots up, and the skylight had been broken into, cut into a perfect circle with incredible precision.

With a shot of his grappling gun, he zips up to the roof and lands flawlessly on the uncut skylight glass. Surrounded by the cold crisp air of Gotham's atmosphere, his cape whipping around him, further encasing him in the dark of the night, his vigilant eyes catch the attention of a figure running not too far from where he stands, dashing fast enough to be considered guilty.

It doesn't take too long for him to catch up to the fleeing criminal. After jumps over the buttresses, scaling over the scaffolding, and winding through the escalating architecture, they both reach the wide expanse of the helipad. However, the backlight of the city's nightscape illuminates the figure he had been pursuing, and it completely catches him by surprise.

A lissom, svelte figure of a woman wearing a leather cat suit, with a long appendage appearing like a tail trailing from her waist down to her knees, eyes hidden behind infrared goggles, and two animal-like ears sitting atop her aviator helmet. Her relaxed position keeps him taut, ready and wary.

"Meeeow…" she taunts.

Something inside him snaps.

One of her lithe arms extends, holding what appears to be a hard drive, and he knows very well what's in it: blueprints for a skeleton key to all of Bryant Industries technology.

"You after this?" she teases, her voice so sultry, dangerously familiar. "Or after me?"

At that, something that grips his chest. Not apprehension, not allure; it's something that he doesn't know, something he doesn't _want_ to know.

He ignores her question. "That doesn't belong to you."

She seems to scoff at him as she tucks it into a pocket. "Does it look like I care?"

He readies his stance. She readies her own, unsheathing sharp claw-like appendages on her fingertips. The lights of the city below them seem to glow brighter, as if illuminating the spectacle of their fight, illuminating the roguish eyes from behind her goggles.

"Ready when you are, Batman."

He makes the first move.

Bolting towards her, he throws the first punch, she dodges quickly, she tries to lunge at him, he ducks. Her claws try to scratch at his face, but he manoeuvres through her quick cuts and pounces. Her kicks manage to land on his shoulders and torso, but they affect him little, allowing him holes to be able to break into her defence as he deals hits on her legs and core, creating enough space to get her away from him.

Blown back, he takes advantage of their distance and runs at her to pin her down, but she somersaults over him and manages to land a scratch on his jawline diving downward. The pain sears through his flesh, and as he hisses getting up, the skin torn open begins to let loose a small amount of blood running down the Kevlar lining of the cowl. She lands flawlessly on her feet, the grin on her lips widening.

There's a rage that fuels him now, as he turns around and throws precise punches towards her frame. Though she manages to block some and evade a few, some land on her solar plexus, behind her knees, and on her neck, slowly weakening her defense line until she's pushed to the edge of the helipad, the edge of the building, one step away from a thousand foot drop onto the asphalt below.

"Hand it over," he snarls; it isn't a friendly request, it's a demand.

She's tired, panting, injured in her makeshift stance, but she still has that mischievous smile. And without a word, suddenly she tumbles backward and leaps off the building.

The instinct kicks in and he runs towards the edge, his heart pounding out of some unknown fear. But upon reaching the tip of the helipad, he sees the hook of a grappling gun shoot upward towards another skyscraper, swinging with enough momentum to propel someone far away from him in a small amount of time. And who else is holding that gun but the thief, waving goodbye at him with a victorious light in her inaudible laugh? Chasing her now is too troublesome to go through, even with the stakes high enough of the blueprints of a powerful tool.

He looks down at his utility belt. His grappling gun is missing.

"Alfred?" he speaks into his communicator.

"Yes, Sir?" the other end replies, the lacings of a British accent around an old man's vowels.

"Rebuild another grappling gun."

"I'll begin preparations right away. Did something happen to the one you have?"

Her figure disappears into the maze of Gotham's skyline. An uncomfortable silence, long enough for him to hear the police sirens at the foot of the HQ building. Took them quite a while this time around.

"I lost it."

* * *

 **This is a noir fic, so that means that every little detail—every name, place, location, mannerism—is essential to forwarding the plot. Pay _very close attention_ to everything and you'll be rewarded with making yourself feel smart, and for revealing a little more to the story that'll make it a bit more fun.**


	2. Men are Always of a Nature Melancholy

**If you can't tell, I really love describing how Batman looks like. As much as possible, I don't use the actual word 'Batman' and use other things instead, like specter and shadow, to describe his movement, almost wraith-like. One of my favourite artists on _Batman,_ Dustin Nguyen, really draws him looking like a phantom, like a dark apparition and not a human. It's really something.**

 **Don't worry about Selina; you'll be pleased to know that the interesting stuff will come up in the next chapter, and it'll be much longer than the first two.**

* * *

"Good morning, Master Wayne."

Bruce is already there, sitting on the dining table in front of his laptop as he raises his eyes from the screen as some sort of greeting. There's a square patch of gauze covering a part of his jawline. Nearly dressed to go to work, with the only thing missing from his attire being an attractive Armani suit jacket. His eyes are tired, his body language just as much.

Alfred removes his coat and sits at the chair across him, twiddling his fingers on the table top. The window outside provides a clear view of the misty lake set against a cloudy morning, a welcome distraction to the uncomfortable silence that overtakes them. Bruce raises his mug to his lips and takes three gulps of cold coffee before putting it down raucously, his deft fingers clacking away on the laptop keyboard while Alfred watches him, motionless.

They both know there's something to talk about. One wants to open the conversation. The other one doesn't.

It becomes evident who is who when Alfred clears his throat, forcing Bruce to look up from his work. Bruce can tell from the conviction in Alfred's eyes that there's no avoiding it anymore.

"So," Alfred leans back on his chair. "About yesterday evening."

Bruce sighs half dejectedly, half exasperatedly. It was going to come eventually.

Alfred's gaze doesn't waver. "Are we going to keep ignoring it like it ever happened?"

"There's nothing to talk about," Bruce finally says, his fatigued stare locking with his butler's.

Alfred leans in, his elbows now on the table. "We both know there's _a lot_ to talk about."

Bruce spreads his arms, his lips tightening into a thin line. "What do you want me to say?"

Alfred shrugs. "Oh, I don't know. 'Good morning, Alfred. The woman who I used to care about very much has suddenly returned to Gotham City after an incredibly long absence.' That's a good starter."

Bruce gives him that look that he only ever showed to Alfred in two scenarios: one, whenever they would disagree with each other, or two, when Alfred was more than right and he couldn't find a proper reply.

"I'm sorry, Sir," Alfred gave a feigned frown, "did I stutter? Say something wrong?"

He didn't, and that's probably the most infuriating part.

"What if it _isn't_ her?" Bruce proposes.

Alfred scoffs. "You _wish_ it was her."

Bruce gives off another sigh. "Alfred…"

"Sir, what are you running from?"

That makes Bruce think for a while as he stares at the data on his laptop, dancing numbers and shifting locations on a digital map of Gotham. There's a chance he knows he can grasp, but it's a risk he's not ready to face. And even risks have odds, and to know those odds, he has to know the situation. For once, he doesn't want to admit that the situation is one he would rather much avoid at the moment.

"I'm not running from anything," he clarifies, "I'm only wary."

Now it's Alfred's turn to be dejected. He leans back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This opportunity presents itself to you on a silver platter and you choose to throw it away." A pause, and it's long enough that the little beeps Bruce's laptop makes as it scans Gotham City every second are incredibly loud. "Don't you miss that life with her?"

He doesn't want to reminisce it, to live through it again only to remind himself of what he had, what he lost. "It was too long ago." He closes his laptops and stands, picking up his blazer from behind his chair. "I _can't_ miss it."

Alfred stays silent as Bruce crosses the room, donning his jacket as his shoes make uneasy clicks on the ceramic tiling.

"Do I have any meetings scheduled today?" Bruce asks from the kitchen counter.

Alfred picks up the tablet on the desk and checks the long list of events and people scheduled, most of which he was going to ignore. "Theodore Bryant's taking up your whole morning, you're meeting him at nine at his HQ. You also have a meeting with the board for the whole afternoon, and a dinner at seven with the Prestons at the Skyline."

Bruce exhales. "I'll be taking the Tesla."

"Very well, Sir."

A hesitation, a breath; they both want to say something, but Alfred's the one who makes the jump. "I suggest that for today, you use some time alone to think on our returning visitor condition."

Bruce stops. Alfred doesn't turn his head to look at him, but his words make the atmosphere tense. The laptop is off, the scanning beeps have vanished. It's just pure, painful, utter silence.

"Wait, Alfred."

Alfred's taken aback; he didn't expect a reply. "Yes, Sir?"

He hears Bruce's footsteps approach, then he sets a warm ceramic mug on the table top in front of him. Alfred looks up to see the same worn-out face, the expression of a man still on the road to mending himself, piece by piece, something he's tired of seeing every single day.

"You forgot your coffee," Bruce finally says.

The butler supresses the urge to sigh again. "Thank you, Sir."

Alfred downs half of it in one go. Bruce walks away, the clicks of his shoes disappearing into the garage.

* * *

The elevator chimes at it reaches the 72nd floor of Bryant Industries HQ. Bruce walks out, fixing the lapels of his suit jacket as he gives the young worried-looking secretary outside the CEO doors another one of his playboy smiles. She blushes, then gives a nod and a gesture that allows him to enter the office.

The large doors are gone and off their hinges from a failed robbery (or at least, that's what it said on the headlines), so he simply invites himself in. He's greeted by the huge expanse windows behind the small desk that takes little space in the huge room. In the daylight, the place looks different; there are abstract paintings on the wall, plenty of bookshelves, and lavish interior decorating. He looks up at the skylight, and he notices the cut hole is still there, already boarded up and ready to be replaced.

The CEO, Theodore Bryant, stands behind his desk, looking down onto Gotham City while he's on a call with someone who obviously frustrates him. Despite the many controversies that surround him, Bruce can't help but admire the kid's grit. His net worth's already climbing up towards billions, and he's the first of his kind to ever make a stable empire from nothing in the crumbling hellhole of Gotham. He can be considered new to the game, though he's significantly younger than Bruce by nearly ten years. The business sections of the papers aren't wrong to start calling him the rising billionaire of Gotham. Handsome, witty, charming; the only thing separating him from the Waynes is a couple of millions of dollars and a cynical attitude.

Theodore hangs up his phone just as he notices Bruce. "Sorry for the delay, Mr. Wayne. PR's been having trouble with all the publicity we've been getting."

Bruce raises his eyebrows in fake curiosity.

Theodore sits down on his swivel armchair. "You _do_ know what happened last night, right?"

Realization dawns on Bruce as he sits on the velvet one across him. "Ah, the incident with those goons? Heard it ended up in a mess."

Theodore shrugs. "I wouldn't really consider it much of a tragic ending, though. Rumours said that the Batman was here to stop them. Too bad the security footage was sabotaged by those thugs. Would've loved to see him in action."

Bruce's tired eyes widen. "The Batman, huh?"

"Yeah. I know a lot of people find him weird and 'the very root of Gotham's judicial problem' or whatever _The Gazette_ wants to call him, but frankly, I find him pretty remarkable."

There's an incredibly thin smile on Bruce's face, but his tone sounds drained, as always. "Bet he'd love to hear that."

Theodore stays quiet for a while, staring at the older man, then frowns out of concern and points to Bruce's face. "Something happen there?"

Bruce's hand immediately goes to the gauze pad on his jaw. "Oh, _that._ An incident with a few broken shot glasses at a bar, nothing to worry yourself over."

Theodore looks like he's buying it. "Alright, if you say so. Never thought of you as the bar-brawl type, though."

Bruce flashes another fake smirk that makes him look interested. "If you see a pretty girl at the Skyline and some other lunatic has the same idea as you, things can get messy pretty quickly."

Theodore laughs. "I'll take your word for it."

After a brief silence, Bruce clears his throat. "Now, about that deal."

"I was just getting to that." Theodore bends to pick up papers from a drawer in his desk and procures a sign pen from his pocket. "There we go."

Bruce picks up the papers and scans them quickly. "The final product."

Theodore nods, and points to a blank at the end of the document. "Just sign right there, and the selected capital in your company go into funding my new safes project."

Bruce takes the pen and taps it thoughtfully on his lip. "Biotech, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Only the most advanced," Theodore smiles, obviously proud of his brainchild. "Incredibly accurate retinal scanners and fingerprint-sensitive keypads. And that doesn't even include the thermoregulatory equipment inside and the advanced lock mechanisms."

"When'll you present this to the public?"

"Once the first model is out, there'll be a publicity gala. Then it'll be presented at the Gotham City Bank to store my money. When it flies and people purchase, you get twenty percent of the gains."

Bruce nods. "How much am I funding again?"

"It says right there: seventy-five million dollars." Theodore holds up his hands, as if in mock surrender. "I know, it's a lot, but it's what we talked about last time with your board. You don't have to be pressured into giving me an answer this w—"

Bruce clicks the pen and scribbles his signature. "Done."

Theodore's eyes widen. "What?"

Bruce places the pen back on the desk pushes the contract back to Theodore. "You forget that seventy-five million is what I make in a few weeks. Take it, do something useful with it."

Theodore's obviously taken aback by shock and joy, try as he might to hide it, like a true professional. "T-Thank you, Mr. Wayne!"

A pause as Theodore keeps the contract and proceeds to dial someone on his phone, probably his board to inform them of the good news. Before he even hits a button, though, Bruce leans back on his chair, and an uncomfortable air settles in. It gives him the sort of air that Theodore is the inferior one, even in his own CEO office.

"That incident last night, with the masked goons," Bruce asks, trying to be as indifferent as he could. "Do you know if they ever got something of yours?"

Theodore stops for a while, as if trying to recount the moment, then shakes his head. "Not to my knowledge, no."

Bruce dissects his body language and matches it up with what he already knows. Theodore's lying.

* * *

Gordon smothers the cigarette on the GCPD rooftop, entertained by nothing else but the jagged night skyline of Gotham and the constant hum of the Bat-signal. The large winged shadow casts itself across the clouds over the city, visible by every good citizen, every cruel criminal, every corrupt politician, every psychopath that planned to tear the streets apart.

As a cop undergone years of training, he can tell when he's being watched. He doesn't like the feeling. When he turns, he's there.

On the cornice of the rooftop exit, the shadows make themselves visible against the sky in the form a billowing cape, hard build, and devilish scowl, all tall and upright. The Commissioner looks at him expectantly, and the shadow drops, the cape following behind him like seething silhouettes, until he's standing right in front of Gordon, menacing, intimidating.

"Info on Clarissa Walker?" the Bat asks, not acquiescent. His discordant voice is not that of a man's.

Gordon nods as he lights another cigarette. "Wasn't much of an interrogation, actually. The husband, Matt Walker…he revealed a lot of the details to us from his side with little to no resistance. Intention was he murdered his wife because he believes he's cheating on her. Says that Clarissa's a mistress of that rich kid Theodore Bryant."

The Bat doesn't tilt his head, doesn't move.

Gordon leans on the Bat-signal, its hum much softer. "Matt claims that she's been getting extra money for her…ahem, _services_ …to Bryant."

"How much?"

"He says eighty-five grand."

"Do you believe him?"

Gordon shrugs as tendrils of smoke escape from his mouth. He can only see the shadow of the Bat dimly against the darkness, the dim colors of his outfit working to blend him in perfectly with the night. "We gotta. We have the money in our custody, counted and everything, not a single digit out of place. According to him, he got the money right after the murder, transferred straight into his bank account."

"Still doesn't sound like a closed case to me."

"I don't think so either. Feel like there's more to this than some petty squabble over domestic drama, like something reeking beneath the surface. I guess you know the feeling."

He's already too familiar with it. "I'll get back to you with whatever I have."

Gordon nods and turns around to pull the lever, switching off the Bat-signal and stopping the reverberation of the spotlight's drone. But when he turns around, the Bat is gone; there is nothing but quiet loneliness, empty darkness.

It's been twenty years of them doing this. He's no longer surprised.

* * *

The buzzing of the elevator's mechanisms stops dead once it hits the bottom, and Alfred steps into the underground hall, the doors sealing themselves behind him. As he walks towards the computer, his footsteps measure the beat of the constant flow of the natural waterfalls that the whole hideout was built around. He sees Bruce sitting in front of his computer, leaning on his comfortable chair looking far from comfortable. One look at all of the open windows on the multiple monitors clues him in that he hasn't gotten a single hour of sleep.

"Good morning, Master Wayne," Alfred greets, earning a side-look from Bruce.

"Morning?" Bruce murmurs, then looks down at the small clock at the edge of one of his screens, and it reads 4:12 AM. He groans, rubbing his eyes.

Alfred sets down the tray he had been holding on a small table top, putting the cup of hot coffee in front of the keyboard. "If you ignore it long enough, it'll grow cold."

Bruce looks at it and moves it a little, but doesn't take a sip. "Thanks, Alfred."

Alfred says nothing as he glances at the monitors of the computer. One has all news coverage and files regarding the late Clarissa Walker, and video feed gives them GCPD film on the interrogation that they conducted last night. The other provides them satellite data on the incident with the thief from Bryant Industries; apparently it's being heralded by the media as not only video evidence of a master thief, but also rare footage of the Batman caught on camera for the first time in five years. It'll be deleted off the grid once he's done with it.

"Any connections?" Alfred asks.

"If there were any, I wouldn't have stayed here until 4:12," Bruce replies. "There's nothing. I found nothing."

Alfred stays silent, then leaves to work on the new grappling gun close by. "You should've come upstairs earlier."

Bruce shoots him a curious glance.

"One Clark Kent called at about an hour before midnight," Alfred continues, plugging in a few extra pieces into the trigger. "He sounded quite concerned."

Bruce blinks a few times, as if in disbelief. "What did he say?"

"He apparently knows you've been distressed as of late, probably because you've been too busy beating up thugs in high-security industry buildings nowadays. I told him you were unavailable, and he only expressed the sentiment that if anything comes around, he could be of help."

Bruce wipes his face.

"Miss Prince also called last week, may I remind you. She asked the same thing, and she offered her assistance as well. It seems your Justice League is more worried over you than yourself."

Bruce continues to type away. "They don't have to be. If anyone has to deal with Gotham City's problems, it's me. Clark's occupied keeping the planet from ultimate destruction, Diana's got terrorist attacks to stop, the rest of the League has something to do; I have this place to keep me busy."

"If you say so. However, I suggest that you return their calls soon, just for the sake of politeness."

Bruce says nothing, but he makes a mental note.

It's silent in the cave. Bruce types away as he tries to pinpoint any interesting data that his computer brings up, while Alfred finishes attaching the last remaining pieces of the new grappling gun: hard yet lightweight steel, using compressed air as a catapult, capable of holding up to four-hundred pounds. It's a far cry from the very first prototype they ever built nearly twenty years ago.

"Sir, if I may interrupt your work for a moment."

Bruce turns. Alfred gets up from the table and goes to the computer, minimizing all of the files that had already been there. Bruce looks on silently as Alfred gives a weary breath.

"You said that you deleted all of her files ten years ago," the butler says. "The night she left."

Bruce freezes in place. He doesn't like where this is going.

Alfred types a few commands on the keyboard. "I was doing spring cleaning a few weeks ago, and found this."

Suddenly, files, news clippings, pictures, and other video surveillance feed pop up over the monitor. Headlines about B & E's that include some sort of feline pun invade the blank space, accompanied by dossiers of a hundred different names and nationalities, numerous fake passports, and CCTV files from banks of a catlike grace evading all security measures before winking into the camera. What catches both of their attentions, however, are the mug shots of the very woman in question. Unblemished sun-kissed skin, sylphlike posture in front of the camera, dark hair grown to her waist, and emerald green eyes that look more thrilled instead of afraid being caught.

A dangerously beautiful face.

Bruce feels something inside him break.

Alfred watches Bruce's expression carefully. "You told me they were gone."

"I kept them," Bruce retorts, almost unlike himself. "For reference."

"For reference," Alfred scoffs and looks away, annoyance creeping due to Bruce's adamant nature.

An uneasy pause places itself between the two of them. Alfred puts his hands on his waist, Bruce leans back on his chair, eyes closed; he can't bear one more second looking at any image of her.

"I know you want to believe that the culprit at Bryant's was her," Alfred feels the query on his tongue before letting it go. "And I need an honest answer, Master Wayne."

Bruce doesn't move.

"Are you afraid of what she makes you feel?"

Bruce takes a deep breath, his eyes fluttering open to lay upon all the information about her that should've been deleted long ago. Whatever they had in the past, it was really something that changed who he was, for better or for worse; something that exposed a part of him that wan't supposed to exist, something he never wanted to see again.

He was vulnerable in her arms.

He hates being vulnerable.

In a few clacks of the keyboard, all the data vanishes from the screen and the computer's memory; his decision becomes obvious. Alfred tries to hide his dejected look as he goes back to fixing the grappling gun, and Bruce gets up from the chair. They both want to believe the tense air had vanished, but it's still lingering.

"I'll be going upstairs," he picks up the coat on the computer chair, putting it on deftly. "Are there any interesting meetings waiting for me later?"

"You only have one major event," Alfred puts the trigger in place. "The publicity gala tonight for the unveiling of Bryant's biotech safes project."

Bruce groans exasperatedly, internally.

"I picked up the nice Hugo Boss for you to wear to it later." A pause as Bruce walks away from the monitor towards the elevator, leaving Alfred alone in the cave. "I also suggest you nap before the dawn breaks, and that you take a nice, long bath. Oh, and shave."

Unconsciously, Bruce reaches up to his jaw and feels the rough five-day old stubble eating at his skin, even with the claw scratches on his jaw already healed. He gets into the elevator, presses a button, and it begins to ascend.


End file.
